Yesterday was yet another day where I felt strong and inching closer to the old me terms of energy. I spent the morning with Donna, outlet mall shopping which is one of our favorite pastimes 🙂 At sunset, Hans and I took pictures and then went to our friend Aimee’s 50th birthday party just down the road. I was able to eat the delicious food that they had prepared and stand for long periods of time.

By the way, I received the books that I ordered online and I read  the colon cancer diet book. The author, Dr. Christopher Maloney, is a colon cancer survivor and spends quite a bit of time talking about what science has determined might be the causes of colon cancer. He states that we do know a great deal about what  causes colon cancer in the general population and it is the western diet and lifestyle of sitting all the time that has become the perfect breeding grounds for colon cancer.  He also addresses the question of whether colon cancer runs in the family and explains the genetics involved.

His conclusion  is that diet and lifestyle can contribute to cancer and reforming bad habits can improve your chances of staying healthy going forward. Ironically, I’ve always eaten healthy and exercised… although I did (do)  love my desserts 🙂

On page 15, Dr. Maloney bemoans  the fact that the connection between what we eat and colon cancer has not entered into the medical framework for treating colon cancer. Not once during his entire treatment did anyone advise him to permanently change his diet. For my part,  I have spoken to nutritionists from  both Moffitt and the Florida Cancer Center and received a lot of information. But, the truth is that all of us are different… Heck even my three cancers, thing one, thing two, and flat head are different…  I have had to experiment and find out the hard way which foods not to eat.  

Here’s what Doc said we should all avoid:

Smoking, lots of alcohol, lots of red meat, lots of processed meat, lots of fried meat, lots of grilled meat, lots of boiled meat, refined flour, sugar, sugarcane, sweets and desserts.  He recommends less than  two servings per week of red meat(ideal way to cook it would be to bake it.). He also recommends less than two servings a day of refined flour and says basically get everything brown, not white. Anyway,  I won’t go through the entire book. You can probably find it at the library or online if you’re interested in finding out more.  I will say it was not the most helpful book for me    His diet would not work for me i.e. raisins, berries, walnuts, beans carbs, broccoli.   Hello heating pad and drugs! 

As I’m writing this, I am waiting for an adopter to come pick one of the puppies to take home with her. I’m excited for Penelope or Paddington to start their new life. The challenge now will be to keep the other puppy from being lonely without their sibling until another ideal  adapter can be found. 

This evening we had a lovely meal of teriyaki tuna, fried rice and molten chocolate cake prepared by my sister.  Judith and Tom fawned over little Paddington who is adjusting to life without his sister.  I kept the puppy with me till bedtime and am determined to give him the extra attention he needs until he is adopted .  Once again, Baxter amazed me with his innate nanny abilities.  Paddington was reluctant to come inside and ran away from me, so I asked Baxter to help.  He ran out to the garden and put his mouth on Paddington to stop him from escaping…quite astounding!